The topicality of Vasa Pelagic’s pedagogical ideas

Abstract

In the history of pedagogy, a significant place belongs to the Enlightenment ideas, which appeared as a reaction to traditional school and its characteristics. By criticising the old, traditional school, and believing in the unlimited powers of education, the Enlighteners believed that, by reforming school, it was possible to create better people and a new, more humane society. This opinion was also supported by Vasa Pelagić, who presented several progressive ideas whose realisation, in his opinion, could lead to the transformation of education of young people. In the period when Vasa Pelagić lived, these ideas were considered utopian, they were dismissed and criticized and, therefore, many of them were not accepted and realised in practice. Since we are interested in finding out whether the aforementioned ideas are applicable today and to what extent, we opt for a research, since it is not common nowadays. The aim of the paper is to present to what extent Vasa Pelagić’s ideas are applicable in practice in school today.  In the first part of the paper, the author presents Vasa Pelagić’s ideas referring to classes, class contents, and teachers. In the second part, the results of empirical research on the topicality of the aforementioned ideas are presented, and this research is conducted among the students of the ‘Borisav Stanković’ Primary School in Banja Luka (N=216). The research results show that many of Vasa Pelagić’s ideas are topical in the present, which proves the futuristic vision of this eminent Enlightener.